Faux Tornado Hits L.A.

So Saturday night (late enough to technically be Sunday morning) I was minding my own business, driving home and about to exit off of the 10 West when I see to my surprise... a tornado. A large looming tornado hovering over Santa Monica!

I have a misfunctioning "Fight or Flight" system ... Brain says "Erin you are a tiny weakling person" ... Adrenaline says "FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT!!!" So in this situation my first reaction was not to pack up my wordly belongings and find somebody with a basement ... instead it was to grab my camera and my family and go TO the looming tornado.

My initial attempts to rouse people were kinda uneventful.

Me: MOM!! TORNADO!!! GET YOUR SHOES ON!!!
Mom: I just took my contacts out!

Me: DAD!!! COME NOW! TORNADO!!
Dad: Wait. I'm uploading my digital pictures to my computer.
Me: DAD!!! WE'RE ALL ABOUT TO DIE. THE APOCALYPSE IS HAPPENING!!!
Dad: Hold on. Hold on.

Me: AMY!!! ARE YOU SEEING THIS TORNADO THING???
Amy: Are you drunk? Is this April?

Minutes later after I've fumbled for camera batteries and finally have a functioning camera of my own - my mother and I go out to investigate.

Mom: Wow! I wish I could see it but I'm not wearing my contacts. OK I'm going to bed now.

Dad finally emerges and sees it for himself. What is it?? We can't tell. It kinda looks like a tornado but there's nothing on the news... nobody's running around screaming ... everyone's pretty much asleep ... oh and it's not moving. I'm pretty sure tornados move. So I convince Dad to jump in Vlad the Matrix with me and we drive toward the tornado to investigate.

Shortly after getting back on the freeway it becomes obvious that it's lights pointed at the sky. A laser light show?? At 2am?? That seems odd. We finally find the source to be Santa Monica High School but the school itself is black, no one in the area and no big crowds of people. We find a cozy little neighborhood parking spot and proceed to enact a stakeout while also attempting to get a damn decent picture. By now the lights have changed from white to red to green to blue ... had they been fascinating colors when we were at home.. "tornado" would have been quickly crossed off the list. Nothing really eventful happened other than a few other cars that apparently had the same idea as us showed up.

At some point two dudes knocked on my window saying, "Are you seeing this?!?!" In retrospect this was a stupid question as we were sitting in our car, staring at it, pointing our cameras at it and ... you know.. pretty much we had eyes. But I'll give them a little slack as they clearly thought we were being invaded by space aliens. And their adrenaline told them to come engage in a little alien vs. human fisticuffs.

So ... did anyone else see this? What was it? Or I should say, "Why was it?" Two theories have been presented to me. The first - I saw a sign advertising a light show at the Santa Monica Civic Center on August 23. Could this have been a test run? The second - a neighbor says there's some super secret thing involving two well-known directors (coughspielberg ... coughlucas) happening at Santa Monica High (a.k.a. Samohi) on the 10th. So that's tomorrow. (Well... again "technically" that is "today" as I'm posting post midnight.)

Hopefully we'll know soon. But my apocalypse trial run only served to prove that I will be amongst the first to die if anything truly frightening happens.